Christina breaks down shock into four steps: a trigger cuts blood flow to organs, the body tries to compensate with faster heart rate and vasoconstriction, cells switch to anaerobic metabolism and produce lactate, then organs fail if compensation doesn't work.
In this video, I'm going to walk you through the pathophysiology of shock and put it into simple steps for you to follow. So make sure to stick around for the whole entire video because, friend, you are finally going to understand shock after this. What is up? My friend Christina here with nursingschoolofsuccess.com and today in this video, we are talking about the pathophysiology of shock. And before we get started, make sure that you hit that subscribe button and click, click the little bell icon so you never miss a video to help raise your grades and have more free time in nursing school. It's totally possible. So what is shock? Well, all shock really means is that there is a lack of blood flow that causes the organs to fail. So something happened that causes the organs to not get enough blood. Maybe there's not enough blood in the body from a trauma or maybe the blood just can't get to those organs like when the heart just isn't pumping like it should should be. So really, any time there is not enough blood getting to the organs, the organs get very unhappy, right? And it can lead to shock. Now I've put the pathophysiology of shock into simple steps for you to follow. Now you will not see these steps anywhere else or in a textbook or anything. I just made them up for you to help you learn this so much faster and easier. So here's the step by step breakdown of what's going on during shock. Step number one, there is a trigger that decreases blood flow and causes the shock to begin. Things like the heart isn't pumping or there is a hemorrhage so there's not enough blood volume or blood in the body getting those organs. There are a lot of possible causes for this, but it all really boils down to just one thing. There is not enough blood flow going to those organs. So in step number one, there is not enough blood flow going through the body to keep all of the organs happy. Now step number two, the body goes into defense mode. And the big fancy name for this is compensatory mechanisms. So those compensatory mechanisms kick in. Things like the heart rate increases to try to get more blood to the organs. Aldosterone is released to help the kidneys retain water, which helps to increase blood volume. And the blood vessels, they constrict to to try to keep the blood pressure up and keep getting blood flow to the organs. So all of these things really kick in to try to help increase blood flow to those organs. If These compensatory mechanisms don't help to increase blood flow to those organs. Then metabolic acidosis can occur, which now is step number three. Obviously the body cannot function without oxygen for very long. There's actually a cellular process called anaerobic metabolism. I know, that's a big word, anaerobic metabolism, that the has to help it function temporarily, even when it doesn't have oxygen. Isn't that crazy? So the organs and tissues can survive temporarily even without enough oxygen. Of course this cannot go on forever and it has some pretty serious consequences, namely metabolic acidosis. So as anaerobic metabolism occurs, lactate or lactic acid is created as a byproduct and lactic acid is, yes you guessed it, an acid. So this causes the PH level to drop and the blood becomes acidic, leading to metabolic acidosis. Now this further impairs the body's ability to function. And finally, step number four of shock is organ failure or multiple organ dysfunction syndrome or MODS for short, which happens when two or more of the organs have now failed. So up until this point, the blood is not circulating properly in the body, leading to a lack of blood flow. The compensatory mechanisms are triggered and metabolic acidosis is occurring, which is making it even harder for the blood and oxygen to get to those organs. And the organs start to fail and they start to die. So the brain, the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, the liver, everything will stop functioning simply because there is not enough blood flow and oxygen going to those organs. So that's your simple four step breakdown of the pathophysiology of shock. If this was super helpful for you, write love in the comments below. And of course, do not forget to subscribe to this channel and click the little bell so you never miss a video. Now click on the next video we've got for you to help you raise your grades and have more free time in nursing school and I will see you in the next video.
